Ah, the Smell of Money ... Burning

Consider the candle. A certain type of candle. Not a taper, not a votive, but a squat cylinder, a bit larger than a woman’s fist. Perhaps it is in a ceramic pot or a glass. Perhaps that glass is frosted, embossed with a word that summons romance, serenity. Dyptique. Illume. Rainforest. Perhaps the glass is clear with a thick bottom. Perhaps there is no glass, and instead a paper label on which are listed the ingredients that make this candle special--hyacinth and lemon grass, ylang ylang and eucalyptus. Rosemary.

This is a candle that is more than a candle. It sheds a certain amount of light, yes, but that is not the point. This candle burns with the fragrance of flowers. Of dreams. Of desire.

It costs more than a pair of children’s shoes. More than dinner for two at Louise’s. With wine. It costs just slightly less than a non-Southern California resident ticket to Disneyland.

This is a $40 candle. Give or take five bucks. This candle is available at Fred Segal and Saks, at boutiques that specialize in aromatherapy and high-end bath products, where shampoo is sold in glass bottles and lip balm costs $12. It is a keystone of those odd urban boutiques that sell antique Mexican furniture, religious icons, trousers made from scraps of Japanese kimonos. More and more, knockoffs can be found in venues such as Sears or Mervyn’s, versions that are a bit too sweet or musky but cost only $10 or $15.

This is a candle that is more than a candle not because of its scent, or its price, but because it represents a division. Between classes. Between generations. Between the old economy and the new. Its presence in a home or a store is both symbol and reality--there are people here who will pay $40 for a candle. There are people here who have paid $40 for a candle.

I remember the first time I bought such a candle, as a gift for a friend who was dying. That is how I rationalized it. Now when I buy the candle for other, less dramatic reasons, I don’t rationalize it at all. But neither is it a benign action. It is a purchase I admit to.

Sheepishly. It is not something I would ever tell my mother. She would assume I had lost my mind. She thinks there are still things that only rich people have. She does not read InStyle magazine, does not understand the modern notion of living vicariously through merchandise. Her scented candles cost $2.99 and smell of bayberry and pine. She saves them for Christmas. She does not burn them.

According to Pam Danziger, a market researcher, this is perhaps the biggest difference between my mother and myself. As consumers. I am a post-World War II consumer; I burn my candles. This is a very big step, Danziger says, in the evolution of consumption, in the evolution of the market.

Because what sets candles apart from all the other discretionary items that Americans spent $600 billion on last year is their mortality. Candles exist to be destroyed. In 2000, we spent $2.2 billion on candles; according to “The Candle Report,” put out by Danziger’s company, Unity Marketing, only 16% of those purchases were made by “non-igniters.” Most “non-igniters” are 55 and older.

“Younger people believe they are entitled to burn their candles,” she says. “Even the $40 candles. They feel that they are worth it.”

The $40 candle is a sign that things have changed. You. Your friends. Your favorite store. Your neighborhood. This country.

My brother calls me to complain about the changes in Los Feliz. Vermont Avenue, he says, is completely beyond redemption--just the other weekend he had happened upon the opening of a new clothing shop. At least he thought it was a clothing shop--the half a dozen or so items of merchandise appeared to be women’s clothing, although in retrospect he wasn’t sure. “Maybe it was art,” he said. “Some of it was burnt. Along the edges. Would women wear burnt clothing?”

The women who milled about the opening fete, he thought, just might. Slim as blades, they moved with the posture-obsessed, elongated gestures of Pilates addicts. “I don’t think I can live here anymore,” he said.

He is exaggerating, of course. Los Feliz has been social climbing for about five years now, and has, in fact, too many redone Craftsman houses to truly claim artistic ghetto status. One man I know argues that Vermont is actually an extension of Silver Lake (as if a stretch of street uncurled itself from the reservoir and headed east one binge-fueled night).

Los Feliz, he says, has always been essentially bourgeois, what with the million-dollar homes above the boulevard. Understandably, he is the one who howled loudest when East Coast magazines tagged Los Feliz/Silver Lake not only as one neighborhood, but as the Next Hot Neighborhood.

Which is one of the reasons there has been a shift from the truly hip--the Onyx, George’s--in favor of the pricey faux-boho--Fred 62, stores with names like Squaresville and Funky Revolution. Gamely, the die-hards battled Starbucks, and lost. Still, it’s standing room only at the Dresden, and if the new restaurants are too-too for the Mondo Video set, there’s always the House of Pies.

Along Vermont Avenue, one can read the neighborhood’s history--Main Street-type businesses like the pharmacy, the jeweler, Printana Gifts, with its ceramic Frenchmen and bangled lampshades--remain as unruffled by the boutique-retro tendencies of their newest neighbors as they were by the Betty Page fetishes of the previous generation.

But still, this is not suburbia, not the Third Street Promenade. Not yet, anyway. I headed over to Hillhurst, which has always seemed the breathless younger sibling of Vermont, a bit too earnest to be cool but able to make up for that with a nice smile, a more pleasant demeanor.

And there it was. The candle. Why was I surprised? The glorious clutter of Mise en Place has always been fancy--copper chafing dishes and $200 teapots, Italian ceramics and silver sugar tongs, kids clothes and toys too nice to buy except as gifts. Alone, it could be rationalized, but steps up the street is a new store called Foam devoted to very high-end bath products. Soap set out in loaves and slices like pastries, like Venetian marzipan; unguents and lotions and oils in bottles of colored glass, labeled with tiny pre-Raphaelite paintings; body tea and bath salts and scented linen water. The natural habitat of the $40 candle.

It is hard to reconcile any of the words that once applied to this neighborhood, even the slippery ones like “hip” or “alternative,” with a $40 candle. More than sudden parking problems, more than rising real estate prices, $40 candles are a sign that things are going upscale and if you are one of the Unchosen, who can’t, or won’t go upscale with them, you are going to have to leave.

This shift in attitude and behavior is by no means confined to Los Feliz, or Los Angeles, or California. In the much touted boom economy of the late ‘90s, the of people whose wealth purportedly expanded became the new American Gothic. Their tastes became our tastes. Dot-comers and techno-titans elbowed aside the entertainment lawyers and investment bankers as arbiters of consumption, bringing with them a new definition of trickle-down luxury.

In the last 10 years, the sale of scented candles has trebled. For a variety of reasons--the return-to-basics shift, a growing emphasis on home and nesting, the premium put on anything promoting relaxation and, of course, aggressive marketing tactics.

But most important, the success of the scented candle embodies the replacement of need by desire. From the baby boomers on down, Danziger says, consumers are driven by desire.

“They are unable to identify what they need. And they have no clue how much they spend on discretionary purchases,” she says, “because these are not rational decisions. They are based on emotions. We believe we need nice things.”

For those who could not afford the ocean view or the Mercedes wagon, there is at least the candle. Patchouli, clary sage, heliotrope and geranium; rainforest, English garden, Villa Roma, grass. JuliaRobertsBenAffleckStevenSpielberg was seen buying one on Rodeo. You can too.

Your life may not be glamorous, but your candles can be. You can fill your home with the exact same fragrance. The smell of heaven. The smell of money. Burning.

Watch the candle as the times begin to change, as the economy slows, as the wealth narrows, as the rest of us must choose between reality and desire. Small and simple, it sits like an axis in the center of a neighborhood, a class, a country as it inexorably turns, from what it was into something else again.